Martins Ifijeh
Government, nongovernment and private sector partners of the Global Fund have increased their donations for the fight against malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis to the tune of $14.02 billion.
This was part of the pledges reached by the partners at their sixth Replenishment Pledge Conference held in Lyon, France recently.
In a message to applaud the commitment recently, Malaria No More, an international nongovernmental organisation applauded the gesture, adding that this represents the largest amount ever for a multilateral health organisation.
The Chief Executive Officer, Malaria No More, Martin Edlund said the global unity affirmed the Global Fund’s life-saving impact and critical role in improving the lives of the millions of people still living at risk of these preventable and treatable diseases.
“Many governments and other donors, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Canada increased their commitments by more than 15 per cent compared to the last replenishment.
“The US, which lead the replenishment, increased its long-standing support of the Global Fund to $1.56 billion for the 2020 fiscal year, an increase of 15.6 per cent from the 2019 fiscal year funding level of $1.35 billion.
“Since its founding in 2002, the Global Fund has helped turn the tide against three of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. Today’s commitments of increased resources are fundamental to realising the opportunity the world has to eradicate malaria in our lifetimes.
“These investments will be measured in cases prevented, lives saved, and dreams realised for a generation of children that could come of age in a world free from malaria, AIDS and TB,” he said.
Saving more than 32 million lives from malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB since 2002, the Global Fund partnership is designed to accelerate the end of AIDS, TB and malaria as epidemics, and its successful replenishment is projected to help save 16 million lives, cut the mortality rate from the three diseases in half and prevent 234 million new infections by 2023.
